Freeh-Agentry: Is the FBI Chief Playing to Bush?

If Attorney General Janet Reno had a least-wanted list, former campaign-finance-task-force chief Charles LaBella would be on it. Republicans regularly bludgeon Reno for rejecting LaBella's call for an independent counsel to follow the trail of alleged campaign violations into President Clinton's inner circle. Next week LaBella returns to Washington in triumph. FBI director Louis Freeh is staging an invitation-only ceremony at which he intends to bestow upon LaBella a "Director's Award for Excellence."

Some at Justice and on the Hill regard Freeh's move as a taunt at Reno, who's resented by senior FBI executives as too solicitous of the White House....